Single Chair Blog Winter Outlook - Not Bad at All!

[skiersleft]

Joshua Fox over at the Single Chair Weather Blog issued his winter weather outlook a couple of days ago. I think he's a great weather forecaster and is quite a realist when it comes to forecast, so I'm encouraged by his take on this winter. You can see the full forecast here:

http://madriverglenweather.blogspot.com/2012/11/el-nino-teases-but-stays-away-from-what.html

In a nutshell, this is the bottom line:

Summarized into a forecast

A winter forecast stemming from the first two more traditional variables would be a very cloudy inconclusive picture. The rapid expansion of snow and ice in the high latitude regions this fall combined with the recent behavioral trends in the Pacific Ocean and high latitude regions has me thinking this winter will be on the colder side. In the past several pre-season prognostications, I have generally biased the forecast toward the warmer side of the 30-degree average since it has been statistically unlikely to get a cold winter relative to this average in recent years. I am going to forecast “average” this year which may seem rather tame but relative to other pre-season forecasts and relative to a more recent 10-year average this is actually rather bold and quite cold. Snowfall I think will be a shade below normal mainly because I think it will be drier than normal. The basis for this comes from looking back at ENSO-neutral winters and seeing the trend toward drier than normal conditions over New England. In addition to this is recent trend across the area of drier than normal weather. In a sense, I am forecast a poorer man’s version of 2008-2009 which was a generally good winter, full of cold, but also full of some drier stretches of weather and periodic instances where snow and cold is confined to western North America. Quantitatively this translates into a total snowfall of 225-250 inches which is slightly below the 250-260 inch normal but much improved over last winter.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving feast with a pre-season pass !! The first threat for real snow comes during the middle of next week with some accompanying cold weather. More on that in the days ahead.

 

[Smellytele]

So below average snow fall is not bad? Wow last year really did suck.

 

[skiersleft]

So below average snow fall is not bad? Wow last year really did suck.

Yes, last year really sucked!! But it's more complicated than that. Although most people here mostly look at snowfall totals, eastern ski resorts benefit more from a colder than average winter than from a snowier than average winter.

Granted, it would be ideal for a winter to be both snowier and colder than average. But given that eastern ski resorts - with the possible exclusion of Jay and, perhaps Stowe - are more dependent on manmade than natural, the prospects of a cold winter bodes well for the East. In sum, colder than normal along with less natural than normal is usually better for the East than snowier than normal along with warmer than normal temps.

So, yes...I'll take this forecast and run.

 

[ScottySkis]

Sent from my ADR6410LVW using Tapatalk 2

Sounds good hope it's correct.

 

[BenedictGomez]

That guy had a pretty rough year last season in terms of forecasting the weather.

 

[ScottySkis]

Sent from my ADR6410LVW using Tapatalk 2

I like his forecasts in past few years bas been more correct then incorrect.